Let’s Tack A Few More Nines On, Boys…. (A blacker-than-black coating, for those of you who aren’t “Lensman” fans.)
Category:
Uncategorized
These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed…
And while we’re on the subject: Inspect This. (snort)
Well, the foot’s not broken. But after seeing what happened to Columbia….my heart. Definitely that.
I was writing My Enemy, My Ally when Challenger went down. Now I’m finishing The Empty Chair…and this happens.
Work continues…but I am not, as we say in Ireland, “happy in myself.”
From an undisclosed location…
(afterthought: snort) What am I, Dick Cheney? (Perish, O perish the thought.) I am in Leukerbad, and I cannot find the apostrophe.
I am finishing the last Rihannsu book. Yes, it is happening, people. O joy.
I also just spent the afternoon having my foot felt, scanned and X-rayed to discover whether it was broken. No, not skiing, not snowboarding, nothing so cool! How is it I am the only person here who breaks her foot walking down the street? And falls on the ice… (mutter. At least the computer is all right. I said to the nice doctor this afternoon, “Ich hatte mehr angst fuer mein Komputer dann fuer mein Fuss!!” All true. And yes, he thought Ryoh-Ohki was cool.)
It is just a damn nuisance, that is what. And where is the damn apostrophe on this keyboard??!!
Okay, here’s the Ugly Word for today: “architected”!!
“…Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said Microsoft’s mobile software needs work, adding that Research in Motion does a better job of linking users to e-mail. And a key part of Microsoft’s phone software ‘has been architected for wired systems,’ he said. ‘They haven’t really rethought it for wireless.'”
Euuuuuuuuuu. Whatever happened to “built”?
My apologies, everybody…I didn’t realize that the Irish Times entry below was premium content. (mutter)
Anyway, here’s something everybody can get at that’s kind of neat. Kartoo.com is a search engine with a graphic display that shows you how various sites are linked to one another. Neat…
Every now and then, a particular word strikes me as ugly, or redundant, or useless, or sometimes all three, and then I get cranky for a day or so. The last word to provoke this response from me was “liaised.”
This morning I have a new one: “surveilled”. As in a CNN story this morning on possible dirty money in the (rap) recording business in New York: “…an individual was surveilled and videotaped…”
Okay, okay, it’s a predictable back-formation. But why this passion for using the amputated, still-bleeding stump of a longer word when a shorter, older, whole one would do? How about “watched”? “Followed”? Or even “trailed” or “shadowed”? …Or are those in some way too loaded / connoted for an “official” source trying to sound just as serious and important as it can?
(mutter) All right, maybe I just need more caffeine. Or I’m too much of a purist. I still think it’s ugly.
From CBC Radio’s Dead Dog Cafe: Get your own Indian name. (“Red Indian”, as Peter would say. None of your Native [North] American stuff here.)
It turns me into “Celia Giggling Pickle”. It turns Peter into “Frederick Sticky Bunny”. Heaven only knows what it’ll do to you.
Meanwhile, Irish weather is taking a turn for the worse (depending on how you define “worse”). It’s going to snow! And about time…